Leadership Overview

Leadership is often seen as an elusive, mysterious trait, in the business world, people tend to seek 'natural' leaders who were somehow born with the leadership gene. They make little or no attempt at leadership training. But in the military it is accepted that many people have leadership potential, and they work to bring out that potential. The military specializes in getting extraordinary results from ordinary people. How? By instilling a leadership philosophy that perpetuates self-discipline, honor and integrity.

The following are a list of leadership traits you may want to examine with regard to yourself:

Perseverance. In business there are times when the only way to meet a goal is to pull an all-nighter, say, or to come up with a brilliant strategy that's never been tried before. You keep working until the job is done. Period.

Accountability. Everyone depends on the rest of the company not to let them down. This is the very definition of accountability. If you're the leader, you owe it to your team to give everything you do 100%. So do they.

Clear Communication. In order to complete a job, one must understand the task. That means the one giving the orders must communicate clearly and succinctly with his or her subordinates. The same is true of CEOs and managers. They must know precisely what they want to accomplish, and spell it out in no uncertain terms to their employees.

Ability To Make Quick Decisions. The ability to make quick decisions is critical. With management structures becoming leaner and flatter, more decisions are being made at lower levels than ever before. So having the confidence and insight to make good decisions-and having a company-wide common focus and alignment on which to base those decisions-is key to business leadership.

Ability To Get Along With Others. Leaders must not only get along with coworkers who are very different from themselves, but must also be able to inspire them. This ability can mean the difference between a business that fails and one that thrives.

Strong Character. Honor, ethics, integrity, loyalty . . . While character is seldom associated with business leadership, one need look no further than the headlines to see what happens when it's not present.